Additional comments from the Point Wells August 31 meeting

The City of Shoreline, a spokesperson for BSRE, and Save Richmond Beach were all given the opportunity to comment on things said and unsaid in the August 31 public meeting. The City said that they will be issuing their own statement, and BSRE has not yet responded. These comments are from Caycee Holt, of Save Richmond Beach.

By Caycee Holt, Save Richmond Beach

By recognizing the urban center application, the City of Shoreline would be recognizing no less than 2,800 condos per the developer’s rough interpretation of the County’s urban center “Floor Area Ratio” (FAR) formula. I don't think that was their intention and wanted to make sure that staff and the Council had an opportunity to discuss the FAR with the developer because the Snohomish County Code will usurp any agreement with the City of Shoreline. If the City wants to continue with the LOI, it may be necessary to enter into an agreement with Snohomish County that will allow the developer to fall below the FAR established by Snohomish County Urban Center development code if the impacts show that the road network is failing.

The LOI does not state that the City will refuse to condemn private property as part of the traffic mitigation plan. Without any guarantee of annexation, to have the City allow the project to proceed until completion, condemn private property for a Snohomish County development for road widening, and then potentially not get annexed doesn’t sound like a great plan to me at all.

The LOI does not expressly state what the trip cap will be for Richmond Beach Drive. This is paramount to the negotiations. As a local road Richmond Beach Drive has an average daily trip limit (ADT) of 4,000 right now. Our transportation engineer has indicated that he doesn’t believe that the road can accommodate even that much traffic . The City of Shoreline needs to establish a trip cap in addition to the phased approach.